Perm do both solves – bolstering small businesses removes mutual exclusivity.

In the present study, we elucidated that the formation of a market monopoly can be prevented by antitrust intervention into a firm’s patent consolidation while encouraging the development of follow-on innovation. Our conclusion suggests further elaboration on the modern understanding of the relationship between antitrust and patent laws is necessary, at least when it comes to innovation. The two laws become complementary when the right to access the substituting patents on an upstream technology is distributed across innovators; when the patents are owned by a single firm, complementarity between antitrust and patent law may not work. This implication echoes the ongoing policy and scholarly discussion on how the modern antitrust law should accommodate technological innovation (Katz and Shelanski, 2005; Khan, 2016; Sidak and Teece, 2009). Thus far, the discussion concerning the necessity of accommodating the Schumpeterian view on the relationship between market competition and innovation has been largely theoretical. Moreover, how the antitrust law plays a role in promoting technological innovation remains an open question. Our study suggests that firms’ patent consolidation through patent transfer is one of the venues where antitrust law enforcement can shape market competition and technological innovation. This implication also indicates the importance of extending the scope of antitrust intervention into “patent-only” transfers in cooperation with patent policymakers to promote market competition and technological innovation.